"Circumstances" alter cases: "Positively disgusting! It's an outrage to public decency to allow such exposure on the streets!"
Date1913
Artist
John Sloan
(American painter, etcher, and illustrator, 1871–1951)
Illustration CitationThe Masses, May 1913
MediumCrayon and ink on paper
Dimensionssheet: 12 3/4 × 14 3/8 in. (32.4 × 36.5 cm)
Credit LineGift of Helen Farr Sloan, 1984
Object number1984-13
On View
Not on viewClassificationsDRAWING
Label TextIn 1910, Sloan joined the Socialist Party. Two years later he began acting as the art editor of The Masses, a leftist journal run as a cooperative venture. Sloan's own contributions to The Masses reveal his concern for social injustices in their poignant commentary upon issues such as women's rights, big business, and political corruption. This drawing implies that it is in fact the wealthy women in their transparent dresses who are "an outrage to public decency" rather than the raggedly attired woman they thoughtlessly censure.
